A Zimbabwean man was stunned to silence after he came face to face with a naked old woman - vampirically sucking his daughter's breast in the middle of the night, The Zim Diaspora can exclusively reveal.

The shocking incident has left people in headman Masunda’s area, Chivi district, Masvingo dumbfounded and horrified.

Although the case was not reported to the police, headman Chinodya Jongore Masunda confirmed the incident and said he presided over the matter at his community court last week.

Headman Masunda told our correspondent during a visit to the district last week that the man claimed to have come face to face with the witch who then quickly vanished into the thickness of the night.

The man, headman Masunda said, claims that his daughters were always complaining of breast pain and he decided to visit a prophet who gave him some holy water that he sprinkled in the house before they retired to bed.

The holy water was meant to give him power to see the witch when she came into the house.

They then went to sleep and at midnight the man claims to have seen the woman stark naked going into his children’s bedroom and he followed her.

He claims to have seen the woman kneeling down sucking the breasts of his teenage girl who had allegedly been complaining of breast pain.

The man claimed that he moved closer but the woman felt that something was wrong and she quickly got up and vanished into the dark night leaving the man stunned in horror.

In the morning, headman Masunda said, the man got up early, took his axe and went to the forest where he cut a branch of a tree known in Shona as "chizhuzhu’’ that he took to the woman’s house and blocked the entrance to her kitchen.

The headman told the our correspondent that the branch of the tree had a cultural significance that meant that the man was convinced that the woman was a witch.The headman said the man was therefore accusing the woman of witchcraft.

The woman, however, was well aware of the significance of the branch of the tree that had been put by the man and reported the matter to the village head who in turn referred the case further to the headman’s court.

Headman Masunda, however, said the man, despite talking with so much conviction, failed to prove his allegations when he was brought to the headman’s court and was charged for witchcraft accusation. He said the problem was that the man failed to catch the alleged witch in the act so this presented a problem to the court.

He was initially asked to pay two beasts and 200 rand by headman Masunda’s court but leniency was exercised and the fine was reduced to a single beast and 200 rand. The headman said the man, who believes that he was being punished unjustifiably, had not yet paid anything.

"It is true that there was such a case in my area that I presided over. The man, however, failed to prove his case against the woman and my court convicted him. He was alleging that he had so much faith in the prophet who gave him the holy water and was so convinced that he saw the woman kneeling and sucking the breasts of his teenage girl. Asked why he didn’t catch the woman, the man said the woman quickly vanished into the night after feeling his presence,’’ said headman Masunda.

The traditional leader decried the increase in the number of prophets in his area saying it had led to an increase in the number of cases involving witchcraft accusations.

Attempts by our correspondent to get a comment from the man were fruitless as he was said to have gone to Mashava.